Field
The disclosed embodiments generally relate to optical networks that facilitate high-performance communication among computing nodes, such as servers and storage devices. More specifically, the disclosed embodiments relate to the design of an optically switched network, which includes an optical control plane and an optical data plane.
Related Art
Enterprise computing systems typically comprise a large number of servers and storage devices interconnected by a high-performance network, which is responsible for communicating packets among the servers and storage devices. This high-performance network is typically implemented as a “switched network,” which includes a central switch that is connected to each of the computing nodes through dedicated links. This switched network design enables a large number of computing nodes to simultaneously communicate with each other with minimal interference, thereby facilitating high-performance computing. In this type of switched network, arbitration decisions are performed by the central switch. This greatly complicates the design of the central switch, which also includes circuitry to implement interfaces for each of the computing nodes as well as a switching matrix.
As these high-performance networks increase in size, it is becoming increasingly harder to scale this type of central switch because the associated circuitry needs to increase in size, which makes it harder to incorporate the circuitry into the semiconductor chips, which are used to implement the central switch. The increasing density of the circuitry in these semiconductor chips also causes thermal-management issues, which can give rise to “hot spots” during system operation.
Hence, what is needed is a design for a high-performance network, which can scale to accommodate a large number of computing nodes without the above-described problems of existing network designs.